More than 100 guests gathered on October 6, 2013, to support the third annual “Evening of Hope” for the Center for Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine at the University of Maryland School of Medicine. The dinner raised $30,000 that will go directly to Stem Cell research. And in a surprise announcement, School of Medicine Dean E. Albert Reece, M.D., Ph.D, MBA, delighted the crowd with word of an anonymous donor who had promised to match every dollar raised at the dinner.

Enjoying cocktails, dinner and a charity raffle at the SMC Campus Center, our guests interacted with faculty and heard news of exciting stem cell research now under way. Keynote speaker was Dr. Mahendra Rao, Director of Regenerative Medicine at the National Institutes of Health. Other speakers included Dr. Eugene Koh, Assistant Professor for Orthopaedics and the Veterans Administration Hospital, and Dr. Candace Kerr, who also served as emcee for the event.

Especially moving was the personal story told by Mr. Greg Pollack, who as a child was a patient of the director of the Stem Cell Center, Dr. Curt Civin. Mr. Pollack is now an adult and is still cancer-free. And Mr. Pollack’s girlfriend, Jennifer Fox, is now a PhD student in Dr. Civin’s lab.